U.S. Pat. No. 4,287,762 describes a digital electronic weather station, weather center, or weather monitor with a digital display panel and circuitry for selecting and displaying on the panel any of a number of monitored weather functions. The weather parameters include, for example, temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, wind speed, wind direction, and rain fall. Calculated weather parameters such as wind chill and degree days may also be included. The weather parameters are monitored by various ambient condition sensing transducers coupled to the weather station circuitry. These transducers provide measurement values in the form of electrical analog or digital signals for further processing. The weather parameter measurement signals are processed and stored and weather data is then displayed in the form of characters on the weather station panel. The weather station panel may be located for example on a wall, desk, or other accessible location.
In the basic weather station described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,287,762 a memory and microprocessor permits selection and display from memory of maximum and minimum readings of the monitored weather parameters and selection of any additional calculated functions. A system clock permits display of time and date. User selection of weather parameters for display of measurement value weather data is made from among the multiple weather parameter functions by, for example, a rotary switch. A rotary dial with detente positions is used for selecting a particular transducer and associated circuitry and display elements. Conventional push button switches may also be used for selecting functions for display. Maximum and minimum measurement values of a particular weather parameter may also be selected for display along with the time and date of occurrence of the maximum or minimum value. Additional switches are provided for resetting data for storage and display.
A video display system for the weather station of U.S. Pat. No. 4,287,762 is described in U.S. patent application No. 268,802 filed Nov. 7, 1988 for a weather station display system which displays the weather data on a video monitor, TV receiver, or other raster screen display. The weather data is derived from the weather station having multiple weather parameter sensors or transducers, and the electrical signals representative of the measured values of weather parameters are conditioned and converted to digitally coded weather data. A microprocessor periodically samples and stores the digitally coded weather data and transfers weather data to a screen memory for raster scanning onto a raster screen display. A light pen coupled to the raster controller permits interrogation of character locations for selectively displaying and modifying weather data.